A popular game in the United States, Japan, Cuba and other countries of the world is baseball. Most of the action in a baseball game involves pitching, hitting and fielding. The rules require that the pitcher pitch the baseball within an imaginary strike zone over a plate, termed a "home plate". Any pitch that does not pass through the strike zone is called a "ball," and if four balls are pitched to a single batter the batter is allowed to go to first base without putting the ball in play by striking it with a bat. The strike zone is a rectangular area defined by a width equal to the width of home plate (17 inches), a lower edge that is an imaginary line drawn at the knees of the batter, and an upper edge that is an imaginary line drawn just below the shoulders of the batter (although in practice rarely is any pitch above the batter's waist called a strike). Thus, when considering the distance from the pitcher's mound to the batter's box, the strike zone is a relatively small rectangular area through which a ball must pass. A pitcher capable of consistently throwing a ball at a high speed through a strike zone is in great demand by schools and by professional baseball teams. For this reason, a large number of young athletes spend considerable time perfecting baseball pitching skills.
Persons with advanced hitting and fielding skills also have opportunities in baseball. Both hitting and fielding require precise hand/eye coordination best developed through repetition. To practice hitting, baseballs must be repeatedly pitched to the batter. Likewise, to practice fielding baseballs must be repeatedly propelled toward the fielder.
Heretofore, various devices and machines have been invented for aiding the development of those skills necessary for baseball. These devices include Applicants' Apparatus for Use in Practicing Pitching of Baseballs, disclosed and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,064,194, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Applicants' prior machine enables the user to improve pitching accuracy by indicating whether pitched balls are delivered within a strike zone. The apparatus has a vertical backboard with a rectangular opening therethrough, four trapezoidal shaped wings secured to the backboard that serve to form an opening defining a strike zone, each of the wings being pivotal when engaged by a baseball, electrical contacts activated as each trapezoidal wing is pivoted when struck by a baseball, and electrical indicators for signaling when a baseball strikes one of the trapezoidal wings to indicate that the baseball has been pitched high, low, inside or outside of the strike zone.
In one of its preferred embodiments, the prior apparatus includes a pitchback machine configured to return balls that have passed through the strike zone back to the pitcher. A pitched ball passing through the strike zone opening enters a catcher box. From there the ball moves via gravity flow downward to the pitchback machine. The pitchback machine picks up the ball and throws it through a pitchback opening.
A pitchback machine may also be used to throw a baseball to a batter or to propel a baseball toward a fielder. While suitable for its intended usage of improving pitching accuracy, the prior apparatus, and more specifically the configuration of the catcher box and the pitchback machine, is not adequate to propel a high volume of baseballs to a practicing batter or fielder.
It is thus an object of this invention to advance the field of baseball training aids so that a player may easily practice all aspects of the game--pitching, hitting and fielding--utilizing a single machine capable of handling a high volume of baseballs.